Document text
Fotms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A.
Circumstarces of Irterviw
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER Levi C. Hubert
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT
353 Nest 118th St., New York N. Y.
Novombor 11# 1938
TALES HEARD IN CHILDHOOD SADIE JOHNSON
1. Date and time of interew
Novembor 1# 1938
2. Place of interview
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
In bod.sitting room in small apartment of informant
3. Name and addreso of ipformant
Mrs. Sadie Johnson
353 West 119th Strict. Nan.
4. Name and address of person, if any, pvt you in
touch with informant.
NWT, Thomas
same *dimes
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surrovndings, etc.
A typleal on. room apartment now so popular for light housekeoping
and small kitchen in hall, bathroom down the hall a few steps.
Furnishings and furniture a mixture of modern and Victorian oraft.
Some plows of furniture obviously landlord.owned# others owned by
tenant as shown by careful attention to them.
Small hall light to satisfy the law.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORN.
Persbnal history of informant
STATE New York
NAME OF N4,,ORKTII. Levi C• Hubert
ADDUESS 353 West 118th Street, Manhattan
MUT November 2, 1938
SU6JECT TALES HEARD IN CHILDHOOD...SAM JOHNSON
1. Ancestry
American Negro
2. Place and date of birth
Virginia
3. Family.
FOLKLORE
NE' YORK
None with informant
4. Places lived. in, ulth date.
Virginia Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn.
5. Education, with dates
A little grammar school
6. Occupations rind accomplishments, with dates.
Housewife Day's worker Cleaning houswworker
7. Special skills and interests
Cooking and sewing
8. Community and religious activities
Church her only interest
9. Description of informant
About 58 years old, grer.haired, weighing about 200 lbs.
a widow, married 33 years, religious in speech and manner.
10. Other Points gained in interview
FORM C
Tc.xt, of Interview [nod tcd
STATE New York
NAVE OF Y.'0AER Levi C Hubert
ADDRESS 353 West 118th Si.., New York, N. Y.
DATE
November 2, 1938
SUBJECT TALES HEARD IN CHILDHOOD.SADIE JOHNSON
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
"One of the earliest of the many tales which have been told
me and which must be taken on faith, rather than backed by facts
and supported by evidence was the one my mother told me when asked
when and where did she get met,
She said that she found me on a log down by the cabbage
patch and I believed this for many years, for at that time there was
no such thing as disbelief of the old folks. Today the youngsters not
only jeer at mention of Santa Claus but they even go so far as to
give you the lowdown on the Easter Bunny.
In my mother's parlor stood an ol&fashioned gramaphone with
its large curved -necked horn. There was a picture of a dog listening
to his master's voice and we children would peer intently into the
dark horn and if a woman's voice came out of it, we strained Lnd
sometimes said that we actually saw the singer in the horn.
On rainy days there sometimes happened that the sun would
also shine and we children would place a pin in the ground and putting
our ear to the ground we could hear the devil beating his wife, or
-2
at least we had been told and we believe that we could hear him,
In my section of Virginia on the sixth of January was
celebrated Little Christmas. At this time the animals were said to
be able to talk and that they prayed on this night. I never went to
the stables to listen but the boys in my family told me that the horses
got down on their knees and prayed for their masters if they had been
good to the animals.
Haunted houses were in our neighborhood, as what section
doesn't have its supply of old weather-beaten ramshackle houses and
queer goings-on. One house, which was in a large field, set aways
back from the road. The portch was rotten and the boards had loosened
with age. Weird lights often flashed off and on as we passed the old
house on our way to and from town. People said that every month the
old house actually rocked and shook itself and moaned and groaned
and the children took pains to stay away from it at night. It got
so bad that the preacher finally took the Bible and read a certain
chapter out loud and after that the house and its lhante was quiet
and respectable.
One night when I was a young girl and my beau (an obsolete
word) and I was walking home from church a strange thine happened.
The night was very dark, no stars were out, and of course there were
no street lights. It was just one of those nights when its lust pitch
dark, like a heavy fog over everything.
We were walking along, not too fast because it was summer and
I wouldn't see Jim 'til the next Saturday night.
One minute we were moving along all right and then Jim
suddenly pulled me over to me, saying, “Look out.'"
Pt first I thought be had seen a mud puddle, but he hurried
me along and -When I asked him what was the matter he said, lothing.
I'll tell jou abott it later."
no was sweLtIng and by the tine we reathed home was pretty
nigh tuckered out, too. Dllt as soon as we stumbled up the porch
cou does that be was pretty soared aswell as tired out. So he told
no that he hrd pulled no over to one side, not because of a puddle,
but because he didn't want no to walk into his sister who had been
dead for over six years. It seems that when he was bout nine years old
and his alter about five, that one evening when his sister vas playing
in front of the fireplace, he had throwned his sister's doll into
the fire and then his sister had rushed into the fireplace after it,
of course her clothes caught fire and the was so bcdly burned that
she died.
Jim was sorry for what he had done wad had begged to be
pardoned for his sin, because he had dearly loved her. It worried
him and after his sister was buried, she came towards him with her
arms outstretched, I hadn't been born with a caul over my head and
couldn't see her, but Jim said thvt If I had walked into her I would
have felt something cold and clammy and he knew I would be soared.
I never went walking with Jim again in thadark.
This caul that re. Johnson spoke of is the intact placenta
Which often covers the face of the new-born child. when a clad has
this covering it is said to be gifted with the power to "se* things:"
They are said to be able to see ghosts, are often warned in advsnce
of thinr,s about to happen and spooks and bents to them have no terre.r,